in number, and that Party had become so thoroughly out of favour with the nation on account of the vehemence with which it published its views, that people were inclined to condone expressions of asperity against its members. His popularity does not seem to have been shaken by the Napier banquet and its consequences. And public opinion marked him out so distinctly as the man in whose hands should be placed the conduct of military operations, that his old opponent Lord John Russell, when he proposed to Lord Aberdeen in November that the unwieldy arrangement then in existence should be abolished, and the offices of Secretary at War and Secretary for War united in the same person, designated Lord Palmerston as the most fitting man in the Cabinet to fill the onerous position. However, the Premier refused to entertain the idea out of consideration for the feelings of the Duke of Newcastle, who was at the head of the War Department, and finally Palmerston himself vetoed the plan. Whether a change of men would have permanently checked the prevalent mismanagement, may be doubted; for, as Lord Palmerston pointed out at the beginning of the next session, it was the system more than the Duke of Newcastle that was at fault; still it would certainly have been one for the better, and would have been decidedly popular.

Even though he did not direct operations in person, Palmerston's word had weighty influence on the progress of the war. He urged all along that it was not enough to drive the Russians back from the Danube, as the Turks were doing without allied assistance; but that there must be "security for the future"-it was Pitt's phrase against the repetition of the Russian attack, and that the only way of obtaining that security was to strike the Empire of the Czar in a vital part. The scheme for

the invasion of the Crimea did not originate with Palmerston, for it seems to have been hatched by the muchcontriving mind of the Emperor of the French; but he was its most powerful advocate, and reduced it from a vague sketch to a proposition of practical value. "The capture of Sebastopol and the Russian Black Sea fleet," he wrote, "would be a lasting and important advantage to us. Such a success would act with great weight upon the fortunes of the war and would tell essentially upon the negotiations for peace.'

These were considerations which would weigh chiefly with statesmen; military men naturally considered the question from a military point of view, and it is one of the commonplaces of history that both Lord Raglan and Marshal St. Arnaud were opposed to the campaign. At the same time the prosaic but inexorable logic of facts points to the conclusion that Lord Palmerston was right and Lord Raglan wrong. Granting the necessity of striking at a vital part of the Russian Empire, it was impossible to strike elsewhere, the operations in the Baltic having failed, than in the Crimea. Had Lord Raglan not been overruled, and had an attack in force been made on Sebastopol immediately after the Alma, there can be no doubt that the campaign would have been one of weeks instead of months. Lastly, it was the fall of Sebastopol alone that broke the spirit of Russia and made a durable peace possible.

The adventure miscarried at first, however, and the Aberdeen Ministry fell long before the Malakoff. When Lord John Russell's factious resignation, in the teeth of Mr. Roebuck's motion of inquiry, rendered a speedy termination of the existence of the Coalition Administration inevitable, Palmerston, its most popular member, made its funeral speech. His most significant re

mark was that he trusted that at least the dissensions which prevailed might be confined to the overthrowing of the Government; and that whatever Government might succeed, we should not exhibit to Europe the melancholy spectacle of a country interrupting by party and political struggles the conduct of great national interests. To the discredit of our party system this dignified appeal was speedily forgotten. Few Oppositions have been more given over to faction, and less awake to the true interests of the nation, than that against which Lord Palmerston had to contend when he undertook to restore the fallen fortunes of his country, and to raise her once more to her true place among the States of Europe.

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CHAPTER X.

THE CONCLUSION OF THE RUSSIAN WAR.

1855-1856.

Attempts to form a Ministry-Lord Palmerston accepts the taskHis difficulties-Darkness of the prospect-Harmony of the Cabinet-Lord Palmerston's tactics-The second Vienna ConferenceThe Austrian compromise-Conclusion of the war-The Congress of Paris-The Treaty-Lord Palmerston receives the Garter. WHEN the Coalition Cabinet fell, amidst a chorus of derisive laughter at the completeness of its defeat, the popular voice loudly called for Lord Palmerston to take command of the ship of State and bring her through the storm. The mandate which summoned Pitt to. supplant Addington in 1804 was hardly more imperious than that which in 1855 designated Palmerston as the successor of Aberdeen. Several weeks earlier that well-informed observer, Mr. Greville, had seen in the Home Secretary's improved position at Court the removal of the most serious obstacle between him and the Premiership. Lord Palmerston was, in fact, as he himself wrote to his brother, l'inévitable; and he added uappy quotation,

Quod nemo promittere Divum
Auderet, volvenda dies en attulit ultro.

Derby and his followers, however, formed the principal part of the majority which had turned out the Government; and the Queen, true to constitutional principles, summoned him to Windsor. The Tory chief sought the support of Lord Palmerston, to whom he offered the leadership of the House of Commons, which Mr. Disraeli was ready to surrender. His first answer appears to have been not unfavourable. But when the decided refusals of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Sidney Herbert to take office, and finally of Lord Clarendon to join a Conservative ministry as Foreign Secretary, showed that he would have to go over to the Conservatives alone, he determined to decline the proposal, and Lord Derby, greatly to the disgust of his followers, gave up the attempt. Lord Lansdowne's and Lord John Russell's efforts were even shorter lived. The former statesman could only be induced to undertake the Premiership for a few months; and Lord John, though Palmerston, at the especial request of the Queen, magnanimously promised him support, soon discovered that his recent displays of faction had so completely disgusted even his old Whig colleagues that he was in the position of a general without an army, and after less than forty-eight hours he too was compelled to retire. L'inévitable then came to the rescue, his way having been made smooth for him by the representations of Lord Clarendon to the Queen; and the question, "How is the Queen's Government to be carried on?" always momentous, and during a European war a matter of life or death, was at length answered to the general satisfaction as far as the Premiership was concerned.*

*The first Palmerston Cabinet was composed as follows:— Viscount Palmerston, First Lord of the Treasury Lord Cranworth, Lord Chancellor.